


Bramblevine

by SatiricalDraperies



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Coming of Age, Dual perspectives, Friendship, Gen, Hobbit Culture & Customs, Hobbiton, Hobbits, TRSB 2020, Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26215810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatiricalDraperies/pseuds/SatiricalDraperies
Summary: “April 27th,” says the first entry. There is no year. “We are moving someplace dreadful.”Hmpf, Josie thinks.Sounds familiar.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020, Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020





	Bramblevine

**Author's Note:**

> The incredible [artwork](https://i.imgur.com/dbTI4BQ.jpg) for this fic was done by androgynouscardinal, who was a delight to work with!
> 
> A factual note: at one point linseed oil is used to waterproof a boat. I have no idea if this would actually work. For all of you aspiring boat builders out there, maybe don't use this story as a manual ;)
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this!

They’re moving out of the hobbit hole (“It’s too big,” Josie’s mom complains. “There’s too much to clean and not enough of us to fill it.”) that Josie grew up in. She’s not even twenty. She wanted to have her thirty-third birthday there, wanted to live there as she grew old, wanted to pass it down to her own children and grand-children and great-grand-children. 

But she doesn’t have a say in the matter and there are several _very_ nice houses being built around the outskirts of Hobbiton and so Josie’s life will take place in one of those instead.

The new house is smaller than their hobbit hole: a good thing for Josie’s mom, who will have less floor to sweep, but a bad thing for Josie, who has been tasked with going through all of the hoarded items from Bramblevines through the generations who have lived and died and kept everything they’ve ever owned in this hobbit hole. 

Josie has been entrusted with deciding what to keep and what to auction off. It’s a thankless job. Her older sister is with their father at the new house already, painting the walls and measuring rooms to see what will fit. Her younger brother is with her mother out at the market, buying food for tonight’s dinner and, if she knows him, getting distracted by every rabbit that hops by. The twins, youngest by several years, are at a friend’s house, bothering someone else with their games that seem to consist of seeing who can yell the loudest or smear the messiest berries on their face. At least they’re having fun.

Josie certainly isn’t.

There’s just so much old stuff, stuff she didn’t even know they had. It might take her ages to go through all of it. She’s debating calling it all worthless (who needs six sets of dining furniture or fifteen different letter openers?) when she finds a dusty old book bound up in leather. It doesn’t look like any of the other books they have laying around the house but Josie can’t figure out why at first. True, it’s a fair bit thinner than most of the treatises on potato varieties and yeah, it’s well worn with the binding cracking in several places, but even despite its oddities, there’s still something different about this book.

Josie opens it up to the first page.

“The diary of Fern Bramblevine,” she reads out loud, tracing her finger over the precisely formed calligraphy. 

Who was Fern Bramblevine? Josie knows her family history as well as any respectable hobbit, even if she’s never been much of a historian. She thinks of her cousins first, then aunts and uncles, then traces the family back as far as she can remember. Seven generations with dozens of friends and relations in each, but she can’t recall a single Fern.

Josie keeps reading.

“April 27th,” says the first entry. There is no year. “We are moving someplace dreadful.”

 _Hmpf_ , Josie thinks. _Sounds familiar._

* * *

April 27th

We are moving someplace dreadful. Hobbiton! Papa says it isn’t so different there, but I don’t believe him. He still does not see the difference between the East and West forests, even though they may as well be different planets for how dissimilar they are. How can I trust him to tell what Hobbiton is actually like?

* * *

A Bramblevine who wasn’t born in Hobbiton? Josie can hardly believe what she is reading. The script is elaborate and hard to read at times, but Josie doesn’t think she could have misread it that much. Fern must have lived a long time ago indeed, to be from a time when the Bramblevines did not live in Hobbiton.

* * *

I have said good-bye to all of my friends and they have promised to keep correspondence, although I am not sure if there is anyone taking letters all the way to Hobbiton. Still, it is good to know that I have friends who care about me, even if I am far away.

Papa says we might still come back to visit, but Mama shakes her head at him. I heard them talking about it late at night when they thought I was sleeping. They spoke in hushed voices of highwaymen and wild animals and other terrible things.

I’m scared.

Lavender says I shouldn’t be, but she isn’t afraid of anything, even when she should be. 

We leave tomorrow morning just after dawn so that we can reach an inn by nightfall and arrive at Hobbiton by the same time the next day. It will be two long days of travel and I worry that our mule might get tired from all of the walking and from carrying all of us and our belongings. Mama has encouraged us to give away anything we don’t need to make the load lighter. She says we can buy new furniture and clothes and sets of silverware in Hobbiton, but they won’t be the same. I don’t want to let go of our home, even if it’s just the forks and knives.

April 28th

I am writing in this journal because there is nothing else to do. We’ve been on the road for hours now and there’s only so many times I can sing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Mead on the Wall” before losing my mind. Susan is reading a book and Lavender is drawing a sketch of her best friend. Little Peter is amusing himself with the bug crawling along the rail. He puts a finger in front on it and giggles when it climbs onto his hand, then cries when it tries to walk further up his arm and pushes it off. I think by now he has tormented at least half of the beetle population of the forest in this way.

I don’t miss home yet. It still feels like we are just going on a trip and will return in time for supper. I think once it reaches noontime it will start to feel more real.

None of my friends cried this morning, even as Lucy Mapleweather gave me a tapestry she had woven herself to hang in our new home. It’s threaded with colors of green and yellow and purple, like the meadow where we like to have picnics. Liked. And there are fern leaves too, for me, and maple leaves, for her. It’s beautiful. I think I will hang it over my bed, if I can. 

It’s noontime now and even though the sun should be directly overhead, I can’t see it at all through all of the trees. This forest is even denser than the East forest back home and the plants all grow on top of each other. Some are even spilling out into the road where our mule has already tripped over a particularly large tree root. 

I wonder how often people come this way. Is there someone whose job it is to keep the road clear? 

We reach the inn early, by Papa’s estimates. Lavender says he was overly cautious in planning our days. She thinks we could have made it to Hobbiton by now if we had left an hour earlier and didn’t stop for any meals throughout the day. Maybe she’s right, but I’m glad to be taking our time. I don’t want to rush this journey. The sooner we reach Hobbiton, the sooner I’ll have to start calling it my home. I’m in no hurry to do that.

The innkeeper and her wife are wonderful hosts. They give our mule plenty of hay and a well-kept stable to sleep in, then slip me and Lavender a whole bag of cookies and snacks to take with us on the road tomorrow.

Maybe Hobbiton won’t be so bad, if it has people like the innkeeper and her wife. 

April 29th

It isn’t even midmorning when our mule trips over another tree root and goes down hard. I had been taking a nap when I felt the wagon jerk suddenly and come to a halt. Mama walked the mule around a bit and she seemed to be fine, but part of the wagon had broken and even if the mule was completely sound, she still wouldn’t be able to pull the wagon until we had it fixed.

Lavender volunteered to walk back to the inn and see if they had any spare parts, but Papa said it was too dangerous for her to walk all that way alone. She said that I could come with her and together we would be fine, but he still refused. Secretly, I was glad. I had been imagining sounds all morning and I wasn’t sure which ones I had dreamt and which ones were really coming from the forest. 

Susan, being the best with anything of a mechanical nature, is taking a look at the broken piece and consulting Papa on the easiest way to fix it. I feel a little useless just sitting here, but I would rather be useless than in the way.

They eventually find a way to tie Peter’s tiny walking stick to the broken part as a splint to hold it together and we are on our way again, albeit quite a bit slower. I can feel Lavender’s frustration coming off of her in waves, although I’m not really sure what she’s frustrated at. The mule, for tripping? The wagon, for breaking? Susan and Papa, for not fixing it faster? Either way, her annoyance is starting to get on my nerves and I find myself snapping back at her even though I am trying to stay calm by writing, 

It isn’t working.

Everyone is in a sour mood when the sun has fully set and we are still not out of these woods. Papa asks Mama if she checked the maps correctly and Peter starts to cry. Lavender thinks we should push on through the night and I agree with her. Who knows what would happen if we spent the night out in the open? And besides, Hobbiton can’t be that far away. Fixing the wagon only took the better part of an hour and even if the mule is keeping a slower pace, we should still be able to reach Hobbiton before the moon rises above the trees. 

Mama and Papa won’t listen to our argument though, and they only agree to keep moving when Susan says something. I’m mad that they only listen to Susan but at least she’s on our side for this one.

* * *

Josie has a tenuous-at-best grip on geography but she has no idea where Fern is from. She should know of another town of hobbits only two days ride from Hobbiton, or at least this inn that they stopped at, but she has no clue. She’ll have to ask her cousin George whenever she sees him later. He’s always had a head for maps and collects particularly old or eccentric ones. If anyone can find Fern’s home, it will be him.

* * *

April 30th

I wasn’t homesick before, but I am now that we’ve arrived in Hobbiton. This hobbit hole is nice, I guess, but it’s not home. When I hang Lucy’s tapestry above my bed in the room I share with Lavender, I only feel worse. Lucy is so far away and the forest between us seems like an ocean. 

Susan tries to distract me by letting me help her paint our mailbox the same bright orange as my hair, but it doesn’t help. What if the mail doesn’t go from home to here? What if it falls out and gets lost along the way? What if my friends don’t write to me at all?

I am trying not to be sad. Mama says to focus on what we have here, not what we left behind, but it’s hard when everything is completely different. There are less trees here and more farmland. There is no meadow filled with wildflowers. The tree above our hobbit hole grows nuts, not fruits. 

Maybe if things were more similar it would be harder. Maybe I should be grateful that everything is new.

* * *

Josie scoffs. She doesn’t know what she would do if she were moving to a completely new place. The only reason she hasn’t tied herself to a tree and refused to leave is the promise that at least part of her life won’t change. 

She starts to place the journal back in its place (they don’t really need an old journal, right?) but then she reconsiders. No matter how distantly, Fern is a part of her family. While Josie has no problem leaving other family heirlooms behind, Fern’s journal feels more personal. She has no connection to Great-Great-Grand-Uncle Marmadoc’s five separate sets of silverware that all look more or less the same, but at some point the journal started to seem less like an old book and more like Fern herself was speaking through the pages directly to Josie.

As much as Josie would like to keep reading Fern’s journal, there’s still another room of knick-knacks and odds and ends to go through. She’ll have to wait until her work is done to continue. 

The next afternoon she gets her chance. Her father and sister are back from the new house and her sister has volunteered to finish sorting out the last few piles so that Josie can take a break. If she finds her friends, she knows that they’ll just be moping around waiting for her to leave. Instead, she climbs up to the tree on the hill above their hobbit hole and sits at its base, flipping Fern’s journal open to the next entry.

* * *

May 3rd

The past few days have been so busy that I haven’t had any time to myself. I haven’t been thinking about home, which I suppose has been nice. Eventually I’ll have to convince myself that this is home now, I guess. Easier said than done.

Our new hobbit hole is really quite nice, now that everything is moved in and set up. I’ve been putzing around, tidying Peter’s toys and rearranging furniture over and over again. It’s been driving Mama mad. This morning she finally snapped and told me to go outside and meet our neighbors or explore Hobbiton or something. Anything to get me out from under her feet, I suppose. 

So here I am, sitting underneath the tree on top of our front door. Hardly anyone walks by and the few times someone has come up this way I have pretended to be asleep until they have passed. I’m sure the people here are perfectly nice and polite but I don’t want to be nice and polite back. It’s so hard to make small talk when you don’t know any of the gossip and I can’t bring myself to smile and nod and say “oh, really?” about people I don’t even know.

I’m sure Lavender would tell me all of the goings-on if I asked. She immediately ran off towards the center of town as soon as Mama dismissed her from unpacking and has already made several friends, taking most of her meals with them and spending all of the time in between together as well. I hardly feel like I’ve seen her at all since we arrived. 

That’s not her fault, at all. Lavender has invited me to go out with them every single time. I’ve been the one making up excuses to stay behind. Making friends doesn’t come as easily to me as it does for her. After losing Lucy Mapleweather and the rest of our small group, I’m not exactly looking forward to starting the process all over again. If it comes down to it, I could always tag along with Lavender’s friends. She says that they are all excited to meet me and that I will have no problem fitting in, but she has always been an optimist.

No, I think I will spend my days exploring the forest around Hobbiton instead. It isn’t the East Forest back home or the West Forest either, but it will have to do. 

May 10th

I’m afraid I haven’t written much in this diary recently. It’s not for a lack of time, but more for a lack of things to write about. That changed today, for better or for worse. 

I was walking in the forest, as per usual. As far as forests go, these woods are pleasant enough. There aren’t as many deer, but there are plenty of rabbits and songbirds. It’s a bit early for most of the flowers to bloom but I can see where the crocuses and bluebells will be coming in.

Usually I walk the existing trails, following them where they lead, but today I decided to venture off of the path when I heard the sound of rushing water. I had no idea there was a stream in the woods and although I had absolutely no desire to go swimming, I thought I might be able to see some turtles if I got closer.

I didn’t see any turtles, but there was a hobbit. In the river! I couldn’t believe it at first. He was flailing his arms and legs around, splashing water everywhere. I didn’t know if we had moved to a strange land where the hobbits actually enjoyed swimming or if this was just a particularly odd fellow who had jumped in the river. Either way, I stood there dumbfounded until he noticed me and called out asking for help. What could I do but jump in after him?

I have never swam before and after today, I have no wish to ever swim again. The water dragged at my clothes and chilled me to my bones. It was a horrible experience. Despite both of our incompetencies in the water, I was able to drag the other hobbit to the shore, where we sat for a while coughing up a lung and trying to regain our senses. 

“Well,” he said. “That was quite the adventure, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. 

“I don’t think we’ve met,” he said. “My name’s Matfrid Mugwort, but everyone just calls me Mat.”

“Nice to meet you Mat,” I said, shaking his hand. I introduced myself and explained that my family had just moved in. 

He seemed so interested in hearing about my old home that I kept talking for the better part of the afternoon. It was only when the sun started to go down and we said our goodbyes that I realized I had never asked why he was in the river in the first place. I’ll have to ask him whenever I see him again, although I’m not sure when that will be. 

I hope that will be sooner rather than later. For all of his odd behavior, I think Mat and I could become friends.

May 11th

I had hoped to return to the woods today and see if Mat was by the river, but Lavender begged me to finally meet her friends. They were planning a picnic and she wanted me to help her bake scones to bring. The scones were an obvious ploy to get me to come along, but I couldn’t resist. And besides, I had a friend of my own now. It may seem silly, but I had proven to myself that I could meet people (well, at least one person) even without Lavender’s well-meaning help. 

We went to a meadow in the northern reaches of Hobbiton. It was beautiful, if a little tame compared to my earlier walks through the forest. By the time Lavender and I arrived, her other friends had laid out a blanket with a feast spread upon it. I was suddenly very thankful that Lavender had insisted I join her in the kitchen earlier this morning. 

Just as I had suspected, Lavender’s friends were extremely nice. My earlier absence was only brought up once, when Gilly Harfoot jokingly complained that Lavender had been hiding me away to keep for herself. 

Gilly is my favorite of Lavender’s friends, I think, even just from our interactions this afternoon. She’s very outgoing and has hair almost as curly as mine, if not quite as brightly colored. While some of the others were gossiping about Dagobert Twofoot’s recent proposal to Mahonia Underhill and the reactions of all of her jealous admirers, Gilly took the time to fill me in on who everyone was. Beyond the thoughtfulness of this, she had the funniest descriptions of how it all went down. I’ll be the first one to admit that I can be a bit reserved at the best of times, but Gilly had me laughing all afternoon. I felt almost like I had known her my whole life. It was… odd, but I liked it. 

May 19th

Today was the first time since I went to Lavender’s picnic that I hadn’t spent the whole day with Gilly. We had settled into a kind of routine where she would stop by the hobbit hole in the morning to deliver us freshly baked bread (her family had the best bakery in all of Hobbiton) and pick me up for whatever the day held for us. 

We typically wandered the paths of Hobbiton and Gilly would point out all of the hidden details and stories behind them. She said she liked seeing her home through my newcomer’s eyes, but I think the real source of my wonder came from her over-the-top descriptions and dramatic reenactments of local legends. It all seemed more beautiful when she was the one showing it off.

Yesterday she told me that she would be busy all weekend and wouldn’t have time to see me. Her mother had just given birth to her younger sister Forsythia and wanted the whole family around to help out. Of course I understood why Gilly had to stay at home. I remember how hectic it was when Peter was born. Still, I was a little sad at being left to my own devices. That’s when I decided to return to the forest and see if I could track the stream to its source. 

I didn’t find the source, but I did run into Mat again! When I first saw him by the banks of the river (not in the water this time, thankfully) I felt horrible for not stopping by or trying to find him earlier. I really had enjoyed spending time with him, even if it meant getting a little wet. 

He shrugged off my apologies and said that he had been busy as well, designing and building a boat. I was so relieved that he wasn’t mad at me and vowed to make more of an effort to see him more often, especially once I saw the boat he was working on. 

I don’t like boats. There’s really no reason for them, not when we can build bridges and pathways along the water instead. Something about the idea of having water control my direction gives me an uneasy feeling. 

Mat’s boat is different. Maybe it was the excitement in his voice as he told me about the technical aspects of constructing a rudder, or maybe the boat really was that impressive. Either way, I could feel myself getting swept away in the process of creation. Mat estimates it will take at least another week, if not longer, until the boat is ready to be tested. I’m not sure that I’ll join him for that, but I’ll definitely watch from dry land. And until that day comes, I had a really good time helping to piece together the wooden boards. 

I told Mat that I would return tomorrow with some linseed oil. He had been trying to find a way to prevent water from seeping through the cracks between the pieces of wood. Susan had gone through a carpentry phase a few years ago and I remember her using linseed oil to coat all of her finished projects in order to protect them from the elements. Hopefully we brought some with us, and hopefully it works the way I think it will!

* * *

Well, Fern certainly seemed to get over her homesickness quickly if all it took was an accidental swim and a tour from an instantly-attached friend!

Josie hopes she doesn’t need both of those to deal with her own upcoming move. The way Fern writes about him, Mat seems nice and all, but Josie doesn’t think she would have jumped in after him the same way Fern did. And building a boat too! Maybe hobbits were more adventurous back then. Walking around town is much more Josie’s speed than getting lost in the woods and spending so much time so close to water.

It’s convenient that Fern had all of Lavender’s friends, too. Josie thinks about her own family: her older sister Catalpa, who has always been more interested in reaching her own standards of physical strength and perfection than those of other people; her younger brother Hal, the quiet scholar of the family who speaks about the plants and animals like they’re old pals of his; and the twins Adaldrida and Sigismund, not yet grown into their names but already more than capable of organizing any rag-tag group of children into a merry band of mischief-makers.

Unless she wants to run around with a bunch of little kids, her family isn’t going to make any friends for her. Josie is beginning to seriously consider the merits of finding the nearest river to the new house and waiting around for someone to fall in.

* * *

May 20th

The linseed oil works! We built a small model today and painted over it with the oil this morning. By mid-afternoon it had dried completely and was more than ready to set sail. Mat had the forethought to place a white cloth on the inside so that we could easily see if any moisture had gotten through, not that any did.

Even though it was my idea, I was still a little surprised that it actually worked. Mat thinks that if we spend a few days preparing the lumber and then a few days for construction, the boat should be ready to set sail in about a week and a half!

May 21

Today I got to meet Gilly’s baby sister. She’s so small! I had forgotten just how tiny newborn baby hobbits were in the years since Peter was born. Since her mother was still exhausted, I left after only a half hour. Gilly came outside with me to talk for a bit though. She actually apologized for not seeing me over the weekend! I told her it was completely fine, of course. She seemed to think that I had spent it completely by myself. I didn’t correct her. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to tell her that I had been with Mat the whole time. It’s not that I thought that she would be jealous that I had another friend, but it just didn’t cross my mind to tell her what I had been doing. Maybe some other time I’ll see if she and Mat both want to hang out together. 

After seeing Gilly, I went back down to the river to see Mat. The path has become second nature to me. I still sometimes get lost in Hobbiton proper trying to find my way around, but I’ve started to learn the forest, not quite as well as I knew the forests back home, but close. It’s a good feeling, that my eyes recognize the trees as I go past and my feet instinctively dodge the roots across the path.

We’re making good progress on the boat. By midafternoon the lumber was all cut to Mat’s specifications and we had started covering it all with the linseed oil. Mat says that it will be a fairly small boat but you would never know from the huge pile of wood. The time goes by quickly, though, so even though we still have a lot to do, the whole project seems a lot more manageable. 

May 30

Mahonia Underhill and Dagobert Twofoot are having an engagement party tomorrow! Ordinarily this wouldn’t mean anything to me since I don’t know either one of them, but Lavender says that the whole town is invited and that means that I will be attending, along with everyone else. 

I love parties—it’s the crowds I’m not so fond of. Still, Lavender said that she would alter my nicest dress and Susan said that she would help tie ribbons in my hair. They’re being so nice. I almost think that they’re trying to make up for the fact that I appear to only have the one friend. Insisting that, in reality, I have two friends only seems to make it sadder. 

I’m not sad about it: Gilly and Mat are two of the best friends I could ever hope for. But Lavender and Susan seem to think that getting me all dressed up will attract even more. Well, the more the merrier, right?

* * *

Josie can no longer make out Fern’s handwriting in the dying summer light. She takes the diary back inside, where the hobbit hole is unrecognizable. Everything is packed away in boxes labeled with their contents. 

Tomorrow they leave. Josie isn’t ready to go. She doesn’t think that she ever will be, not really, not deep down inside where it matters. 

She lights a candle and sits down, leaning her back against a crate and opening Fern’s diary to where she left off.

* * *

May 31

Oh, have I had a day! Shall I start at the beginning? The party was today and, as I had completely forgotten for the time being, so was the maiden voyage of the boat that Mat and I had built. 

But I did not remember this second reason for today’s importance and so I dolled myself up with Lavender and Susan. In the morning sunlight everything seemed so much more exciting and I could not wait to head down to the commons to celebrate. 

It really was a lovely party. Lavender introduced me to Mahonia and Dagobert (of course she had met both of them earlier—what else could you expect from her?) and they were both so nice. It was great to finally meet them and all of the other people that Lavender had been telling me about. While I had been running around the woods, she had been getting to know all the residents of Hobbiton and introduced me to just about everyone. I doubt I’ll remember everyone’s name tomorrow, but it was nice to meet them all today.

Now, Mat and I had planned to launch the boat right around the time of afternoon tea. But I, being far too preoccupied with the celebrations, completely lost track of time and didn’t remember our plans until Mahonia’s mother was right by my side offering me biscuits. 

I didn’t jump up or exclaim, “I have to go!” but rather took a biscuit politely and waited until no one was looking before slipping away. At least, I thought no one was looking. Gilly caught up with me at the edge of the commons and asked where I was going and didn’t I know that there was to be a cake later? I gave her the briefest of summaries of my plans with Mat and told her that I really had to leave right this minute. Also, I asked her to save a slice of the cake for me because that did sound delicious and I most certainly did not want to miss it.

Gilly being Gilly, she decided instead to come with me. Apparently she and Mat used to be friends back in the day and she had missed him these past few years. I didn’t argue with her or tell her to stay and enjoy the party. We had been friends for long enough that I knew I could not convince her otherwise, not when she had made up her mind that something was worth doing. 

So we walked discreetly away from the party until we were far enough away, then we broke out into a mad dash through the forest. It is a wonder we didn’t trip on any rocks or get caught in the tree branches, but somehow we made it to the river in one piece, albeit a little out of breath.

Mat was just as surprised to see Gilly as she was to see that he was serious about sailing in our boat. Looking at it through her eyes, it suddenly looked much smaller and less sturdy than it had appeared while we were building it. I had grown used to the river (even if my feelings towards it were still less than positive) but now it looked as wild as it had on the first day that I had seen it. 

Still, I trusted our construction. Mat had shown me smaller models that stayed afloat even when he loaded them up with rocks and I knew the work of my own hands that had gone into cutting and shaping and nailing together each piece of wood. 

“Well then,” Gilly said. “If you trust the boat, why aren’t you sailing it with Mat?”

It was a good question. She didn’t mean it as a challenge, but somewhere deep in my mind I took it as one. 

“Alright,” I said, and I started pushing the boat towards the water.

“Is there room for three?” Gilly asked.

Mat nodded and grinned and said that he thought we could make it work.

Looking back on it, I’m not sure that it really worked, per se, but between the three of us, we were able to push the boat into the river and hop in. Mat and I each took an oar and began paddling the boat downstream. Gilly stood at the front of the boat, calling out directions to avoid low hanging tree branches and rocks standing in the way of our boat.

I noticed with quite a bit of satisfaction that my arms had grown stronger from all of the days spent building the boat. My oar moved so smoothly through the water that I almost forgot my fear and started to enjoy the experience of moving through the river. Mat and I started paddling faster, strong strokes that swept the water into little whirlpools eddying out from the sides of the boat. 

It was all going so well! Until, of course, it wasn’t anymore. Gilly shrieked for us to look out but by the time we started back paddling it was too late to escape the pull of a waterfall directly in front of us. 

The waterfall can’t have been very large, but it certainly felt that way as our boat reached the edge and started to tip over. I abandoned my oar to clutch to the side of the boat with all my strength. I remember looking down and seeing my knuckles turn white, either from the cold of the water or from holding on too tight or most likely both.

Clearly we made it out alright or I wouldn’t be writing this story down, but in the moment it didn’t feel like we would. I couldn’t tell up from down, especially when the water crashed down over us and the whole world started spinning. All I could do was focus on holding on to the boat and hoping that it would all stop. 

I didn’t even notice when we reached the bottom of the waterfall. Every bit of me was waterlogged and my head was still spinning. 

It was the lack of air, I think, that made me finally start kicking my way up towards what I thought was the surface. My head broke above the water and I gulped in my first breath of air in what felt like an eternity. Around me, Mat and Gilly were also sputtering and gasping for air. The boat—the poor boat, that we had spent so much time working on—had been torn apart and was now floating in pieces around us. I grabbed on to a nearby bit of wood and used it to keep myself afloat as I dragged myself through the now placid river to the shore.

“What an adventure!” Gilly said.

“We’ll have to add a rudder next time,” Mat said.

“Are you both out of your minds?” I said. 

It took quite a bit of time to explain to Mama why, exactly, my clothes were all torn and waterlogged, but she eventually came around—not before making me promise to sew them back up myself and to perhaps not wear my nicest dress the next time I decided to sail over the edge of a waterfall.

On a more fortunate note, there was still a bit of cake left over at Mahonia and Dagobert’s party once the three of us had pulled ourselves together and made it back into town. Sitting with my two best friends and watching the sunset with a large slice of cake, I couldn’t care less about the stench of river water or the leaves still stuck in my hair. Those were problems for a later time. For now, I’m just enjoying myself and looking forward to what the summer brings.

* * *

Josie sits in the back of the wagon while her father whistles a tune. He couldn’t be happier about their move. And while Josie isn’t exactly ready to sing along with him, she doesn’t roll her eyes or shake her head. This new house may not be her home, not yet, but it could always be worse. After all, she could be sailing a boat down a waterfall.


End file.
